


The Winchester Family Dynamics - Why Wincest is a Consensual Relationship Built on a Platform of Skewed Familial Love

by ArchTroop



Series: Supernatural Meta [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Incest, M/M, Meta, Other, covert incest, emotional incest, non-professional psychology for a dime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-08
Updated: 2015-05-08
Packaged: 2019-09-13 03:39:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16884954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArchTroop/pseuds/ArchTroop
Summary: One of the interesting arguments about the origins of wincest within a story is nature vs. nurture: Were they destined to it, or were they brought up like that? Soulmates or screwed-up psyche? I have no definite answer. Canon supplied us with both possibilities to the brothers’ emotional attachment: Soulmates, fate, Lucifer and Michael. Cupid brought John and Mary together so Sam and Dean will be born. On the other hand, we have John being the drill sergeant, the djinn showing how NOT close Sam and Dean are if Mary is alive, etc. We actually are left without a definitive answer. Maybe it’s both.But here I would like to discuss the NURTURE aspect, and be a psychologist for a dime, and let myself meta it out. Troubling issues ahead, so please keep in mind.





	The Winchester Family Dynamics - Why Wincest is a Consensual Relationship Built on a Platform of Skewed Familial Love

**Author's Note:**

> December 2018... tumblr is on a censorship spree. I realized I have some good meta there, and after they ban titties, wincest will probably be next. So, if any of the casual readers here like meta and thinky thoughts, I hope this finds an audience.

I've recently stumbled upon an article in 4 parts about [Emotional Incest](http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2012/04/emotional-incest-part-1-definitions.html) by Libby Anne (2012), while searching for some other meta I wanted to re-read. Libby Anne basically demonstrates her analysis and arguments via examining the Christian Patriarchy and the Vision Forum.

To summarize, here are some excerpts (for the sake of the argument) be patient  **AND READ IT** , so you’ll understand what the hell am I writing about. After most of the excerpt there will be written the corresponding Winchester Family Individuals, as in  **[X---affects--- >Y]**, so you will be able to follow my line of thought. Now, lets go with it:

  * _**“Emotional incest”**  is a tricky term because it sounds as though it implies a sexual relationship when it doesn’t. Some scholars use the term  **“covert incest”** instead, but that doesn’t really help because it retains the word “incest.” Other scholars have used the term  **“enmeshment,” “co-dependency,”** and  **“emotional abuse”**  is another related concept as well. For the sake of this short series of posts, I will use the term “emotional incest” because I think that if you can get past the “ick” factor of the word incest, this construction is actually very descriptive." _ **[Basic Definition)**
  * _...Emotional incest involves an unhealthy relationship between parent and child in which_ ** _the child serves as a sort of emotional “spouse” to the parent...  
_**[John-- >Dean]** [[](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH6rvXvH_9U)Also, Mary-->Dean[]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH6rvXvH_9U)**
  * _...Covert incest occurs when_ **a child plays the role of a surrogate husband or wife to a lonely, needy parent.** _The parents’ need for companionship is met through the child. The child is bound to the parent by excessive feelings of responsibility for the welfare of the parent._ ** _The demand for loyalty to the lonely, needy parent overwhelms the child and becomes the major organizing experience in the child’s development...  
_****[John-- >Dean] **
  * **_...Covert emotional incest begins when a person perceives and responds to a family member as a replacement or substitute for a partner...  
_******[John-- >Dean]**[Dean-->Sam]**
  * _...This form of incest described as a relationship where **a parent turns a child into a partner or confidante that is inappropriate to the child’s age and life experience.**  Or to put it another way, when a child is manipulated into the role of a surrogate wife or husband by a needy parent. While some refer to this as covert incest, others refer to it as emotional incest...  
_**[John-- >Dean]  **
  * _...Emotional incest takes place when the **emotional relationship**  between a parent and a child becomes like that between two spouses, except that  **given the immaturity of the child the relationship is one-sided**  and the parent feeds off the child emotionally while  **the child ends up feeling responsible for the well-being of the parent...**_ **[John-- >dean]  ** **[Mary-- >Dean]******
  * _...Sometimes emotional incest is extremely severe and debilitating, and other times it’s more moderate and can almost go unnoticed. Regardless of its intensity, though, emotional incest is harmful and unhealthy..._
  * _...At the most basic level, it happens when a parent’s emotional needs are not being met and the parent responds by looking to the child to fulfill those needs..._
  * _...are expected to completely **lose themselves in their father,**  and to literally not have a desire outside of what he wants for them. His vision is to be their vision,  **his thoughts their thoughts, his desires their desires, his passions their passions...  
**_**[John-- >Dean] **
  * _...Families that are_ **dysfunctional** ,  **abusive** ,  **troubled** , and  **broken** are especially  **prone to emotional incest.**  There’s the  **single mother**  (or abused wife) who ends up seeking to find in one of her children the emotional fulfillment she would normally find in a spouse...  
****[John-- >Dean]**[Mary-->Dean]**   
_...The emotional cost of father-daughter (as in: parent-child) emotional incest includes stress and anxiety disorders,_ ** _mental_** _and physical illness,_ ** _identity disorders and underdeveloped and confused sense of identity and depression..._  
********[John-- >[Dean](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYCtt7Oc46o)]******
  * _...It should(n’t) be surprising that_ _ **emotional incest** should  **correlate with the amount of**_ _ **dysfunction**  in a family. I suspect it also **correlates with lack of strong outside support networks...**_
  * **_...frequently transmute their desires for equal partnership and respect from their husbands into an emotionally incestuous relationship with their sons...  
_******[Mary-- >Dean][Dean-->Sam]** **
  * _… when you_ ** _reduce the marital relationship into a master-subordinate equation,_** _the affection, respect and mutual enjoyment get pushed out somewhere else..._  
**[John-- >Mary-->Dean][John-->Dean-->Sam]**  
_...When emotional incest occurs, for a child to get out of the situation she – or he – has to essentially_ ** _break up with her parent.._.** _Of course, for this analogy to truly work you have to_ ** _remember that the relationship that was broken off was not one between two equal adults..._  
******[John-- >dean]********



Not only it struck very close to home for me, it reminded me the Winchester Family Dynamics, and I truly think that John, Dean and subsequently Sam, were all affected by it.  **BUT.**

How it all began? What actually triggered it? I will just flat out say my theory: John and Mary. They were in love? Great. Did they function well? Nope. Mary maybe wanted an ordinary life, but the fact was that she wasn’t brought up as “normal”. John, although “sweet”, as described by Mary, seems somewhat emotionally distant. As much of what we saw of them, they BOTH seem to make that mistake: They are BOTH emotionally distant from each other, while seeking that warmth. Mary was keeping secrets, newly-wed, her family just slaughtered before her eyes, no familiar network, friends or colleagues, John was post-war and somewhat shy, maybe even confused - with partial memory erasure. They definitely had a problem in communication. 

Enter little Dean. We see in the heaven episode how he “knew what to do”, what to say to Mary to comfort her. She, on the other hand, stood there till he came to her, and hugged her ( _and told her that he will never leave her)_  instead of brushing the argument away and going for a minute to a different room or anything like that. (As a side note, I recognize this behavior from my own mother, except that I was an emotionally distant child AND adult, so she actually HAD to beg for comfort from me, and threw tantrums when I stared at her, she would say “why don’t you care about me???”, and what Dean had shown in that scene is exactly how I would react to avoid such little tantrums. His eyes are dead, it’s like a counterattack, a job to do. He was 3 years old. At least I was 8-10 by then).

After Mary’s death, John is lost, devastated. We know how that one goes. As a side note, again, I love John Winchester. He is a great character, I wish we had more episodes with him. I never questioned his love for his sons. I respect a lot of his decisions. With that said, I condemn many of his decision as well.  
He did turn to Dean for comfort, of sorts, he did place him as the surrogate mother to Sammy, a surrogate wife to himself. Yes, we all heard about that. But the scary thought, really, is that following the logic of what has been written above -  **John learned this behavior from Mary.**

With no supporting network of friends or family, probably being followed by demons all around, in paranoiac atmosphere, John locked his little family in this tiny circle for protection. He made dean his second, and Sam was the little treasure to be guarded.  
  
Now, keep in mind that Dean grows. He becomes this weird teenager, with no familial network, friends or roots. All he sees is Sam and John. In that order. Why? Because John said so. Dean represses all emotions, as we know. But to what extent? I would argue that it wasn’t always so bulletproof, thick armor of I-Don’t-Feel. I think Dean did, at some point, feel what he lacks, and I’ll quote -  **e** _ **qual partnership and respect, affection, mutual enjoyment,**  _and he would turn to  **HIS SON: Sam.**  
But here is the thing: As opposed to Dean’s relationship with John, that is  **ONE-SIDED, and not between two equal (adults),** with Sam it  **IS.**  
So, while Sam sees Dean as this big everything, Dean shares with Sam as if he would with a  **partner.**  Instead of reaching out for emotional comfort from an outside party, Dean establishes this relationship with Sam, but since Sam is only 4 years younger, the effect is different: It has the quality of two equal teens/pre-teens. The fact that Dean would have talked to Sam as he would with an adult probably also played a part - Sam would feel much more encouraged to reciprocate and to not fear being disregarded, but it would probably also confuse him: With hormones bouncing around, and the probable themes of a teenage conversation their relationship would start getting romantic undertones  _ **(...**_ ** _a person perceives and responds to a family member as a replacement or substitute for a partner)._**

No wonder Sam left to Stanford. He was probably the most confused young man in the entire universe, not knowing what's left and what's right, seeking his own path in the world, that wasn’t bound to Dean and John.   
But the facts are, that what he did - Stanford, Jessica -  **it was EXACTLY what happened to Mary -** it would’ve broken in the long run. He already was lying to Jessica. He kept secrets. He was emotionally distant (I do read that from the Pilot, in retrospective). Back with Dean he can be open about everything, if he lets himself. When there are no secrets between them, they are like two constants - two celestial bodies orbiting gently around each other. unfortunately, that’s not what happens on the screen. Instead, we get all the violence and grief, the angst and lying, OH THE CONSTANT LYING. GUH.  
  
In any case, when Dean comes back into Sam’s life, Sam falls into pattern deliberately. Yes, Dean uses some manipulative talk (”I can’t do it alone”, and so on), but it doesn't mean it’s not true. Dean misses a limb.   
And John’s disappearance was the last straw.   
But the fact that John is out of the picture, equalizes Sam’s and Dean’s relationship even more: it loosens the  _“Father-- >Sons/Brothers, or Big Brother/Mother-->Little Brother/Son”_ patterns and gains a new quality:  **Partnership**. Which correlates with the way Dean, by the logic of this meta, acted out their relationship for some time now, and which Sam reciprocated. And in this moment something shifts: Sam sees Dean in a new light, and vice versa.  
  
My point is, that in some twisted way, the chain reaction depicted above, facilitated a firm, albeit skewed, platform for the consensual relationship between Sam and Dean as adults, equal and self personified. Is it a sexual one? I don’t know. That is what fanfiction is for. Is it based on emotional comfort? Yes. Definitely.  
We could argue that Sam had no other choice, and that would be half true. The thing is, he had choices, but they were limited from the get go. Dean is part of it, but so is John. And Mary. That’s the meaning of  _chain-reaction._  
It’s somewhat of a tragedy, a train-wreck, of broken people, inheriting their hurt to their children, 2-3 generations in a row.  
This specific relationship has deep roots, so deep, we could argue that Sam and Dean got married the first time Dean decided to talk to little Sammy about anything  _remotely_ adult-like BUT for his own benefit.   
In that moment, he started sharing with him like equal, but also mimicking his father in terms of comfort-seeking (emotionally-wise). But sense he and Sam were on pretty much common ground (age-wise, and familial-wise), the relationship didn't stuck as one-sided parasitic thing, but evolved into an actual spouse-like relationship, sense Sam was able to ANSWER Dean’s emotional need without crippling his own emotional reserve. On the contrary, he sought emotional comfort from Dean, as he would from an equal, and got it.  
Question is, what to do with it, how to live with it, and so on. If it works for them, who are ANYBODY to say otherwise?


End file.
